True Love
by Akatsuki210
Summary: A series of independent drabbles, connected by the theme of love. Planned pairings include NaruHina, SasuSaku, PeinKonan, TemaShika, JiraiyaTsunade. MANGA SPOILERS in later chapters. Rated M for later chapters. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own _Naruto_ or any of its characters.

**Warnings:** Although this particular chapter doesn't contain any manga spoilers, later ones will. Also, at least one of the upcoming chapters will have a lemon, so this fic is rated M.

**Important Note:** This story is going to be a series of stand-alone drabbles, with each one focusing on a different pairing. Planned pairings at this point include: NaruHina (this chapter), SasuSaku, PeinKonan, JiraiyaTsunade, and TemaShika. Since I've never written a story centered around a pairing before, constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated—but **please** don't flame me just because you happen to dislike a pairing I picked. Remember, each chapter will focus on a different pairing, so there should be something for everyone.

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**True Love**

_Chapter 1: Actions Speak Louder Than Words_

Neji had said once that actions spoke louder than words. "I think you _have_ changed, Hinata-sama," he'd said. "You've become a lot stronger, and a lot more determined. I think…the change started when you fought me during the Chuunin Exams. Do you remember? At first, you were trembling and looked like you wanted nothing more than to run out of the arena and never come back. But then, you activated your bloodline limit and moved into the Jyuuken stance. The moment you showed that you were ready to fight, _that_ was when I knew you'd changed. Your actions showed it more strongly than any words possibly could have."

In this case, it looked like she might have to resort to action, because words were just not working. "Um…Naruto-kun?" She pushed her index fingers together in the fidgety gesture she always made when nervous.

"Hi, Hinata-chan!" Naruto grinned that grin that always made her weak in the knees.

"Um…I w-was wondering…if…if you…"

"Yes?" Naruto was blinking as though curious to hear what she had to say.

_He's paying attention to me!_ "I was wondering…if maybe…we could…" She trailed off again. She could fight enemy ninjas without flinching, for Heaven's sake, why couldn't she finish a simple sentence?

"If we could what?" Now Naruto looked confused. He was squinting his eyes and squinching up his face as though trying to figure out what was going on.

"Well…I know you've b-been training really hard…and you m-must get really hungry…" She had been intending to ask him out to dinner at one of the local ramen shops—maybe Ichiraku, she knew he liked that one. But she just couldn't get the words out!

Maybe this was one of those times Neji had been talking about, when actions would be more effective than words?

Hinata took a deep breath. She started to feel light-headed, but she ruthlessly pushed the feeling aside. She was going to do this, and nothing was going to get in her way. She placed her hands gently on Naruto's shoulders, and felt like jumping for joy when he didn't pull away.

Then she leaned forward and kissed him.

"Hi-Hinata-chan?" For once, Naruto was the one stuttering. "Is this…why you're always so nervous around me? Is it because you…liked me?"

Hinata nodded. Somehow, it seemed easier to speak now. She'd kissed Naruto, and the world hadn't collapsed. "Do you want to get dinner at Ichiraku Ramen sometime?"

Naruto grinned more widely than she'd thought possible—and she'd spent a lot of time observing his grins. "Sure! How about tomorrow night, around 7? That's when I get done training with Kakashi-sensei."

Hinata nodded vigorously, and smiled.

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**A/N: **My friends and I have been saying for a while that the only way Naruto will figure out that Hinata likes him is if she just walks up to him one day and kisses him. So this was meant to be a story about that scenario.

As I said in the note at the beginning, this is the first time I've tried to write a fic in which the pairing was central to the story. As such, I would love to get some feedback so that I can get better at writing things like this.


	2. More Than Partners

**Warnings:** This chapter contains major spoilers for the manga. Also, part of it is sort of lemonish (hence the M rating on this fic).

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_Chapter 2: More Than Partners_

The rain was drumming on the roof. That wasn't unusual—this place wasn't called the Village Hidden in the Rain for nothing, after all.

Lightning flashed outside the windows of the tallest tower in the western quarter of the city. The periodic bursts of light illuminated small things within the darkened room at the top of the tower.

Fingers running through spiky auburn hair. Mouths meeting in a kiss that started out soft before growing more passionate. Gray eyes with concentric rings around the pupils gazing at curves that seemed far too delicate to belong to a woman as deadly as she was. Lips trailing along an earlobe studded with piercings, eliciting a low groan.

Thunder masked the soft gasps and the whisper of a name.

"Pein…"

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"What the hell?" Hidan stopped dead in the middle of the hallway as he entered the tower. "Do you guys feel that?" Like all high-level shinobi, he could sense the chakra signatures of other ninjas. Right now, he could feel those of Kakuzu and Tobi, which were both normal. He could also sense Pein and Konan's chakra, but those two chakra signatures were fluctuating wildly.

"It's Pein-sama and Konan-san," explained Kakuzu, not bothering to glance up from the calculator he was mulling over.

"I _know_ it's them, but why the hell are their chakra signatures so weird?"

"Eh, they're probably just having sex again."

Tobi looked up from the scroll he was reading. "What's sex?" he asked innocently.

Kakuzu and Hidan stared at each other. "Okay, how about this?" suggested Kakuzu. "We play rock-paper-scissors, and the loser has to answer Tobi's question for him."

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Pein leaned back against the pillows with a sigh of satisfaction. Beside him, Konan stretched lazily, then raised her head and looked towards the closed door. "Do you hear that? It sounds like someone yelling."

Pein cocked his head to one side, listening carefully. "It sounds like…it sounds like Hidan's complaining because Kakuzu cheated at rock-paper-scissors."

Konan turned over and buried her face in a pillow. "I don't think I even want to know…"

"Neither do I. Why, exactly, do I put up with them?"

"Because you want to conquer the world?"

"Oh, right. That."

Pein had once overheard a teenaged kunoichi complaining to her older sister about a young man she loved who didn't return her feelings. Why was it, she had asked, that he seemed completely unimpressed regardless of what she did? (This particular kunoichi had just been promoted to jounin, and had completed several difficult and dangerous missions.) The older sister responded that men tried to pretend that they were completely self-sufficient, that they didn't need anyone, least of all a woman. But in the end, they were really only pretending. "Men need women," she had said. "A man could be the most powerful and revered person in the world, but he'll still be miserable if he's alone. Even Daimyos and Kages need someone to confide in, someone they can count on to be by their side no matter what happens."

"Even someone like Pein-sama?" the younger sister had asked.

"Well, sure. Why do you think he chose Konan-sama as his messenger?" the older one had replied.

Laying in the dark, listening to the rain and the thunder, Pein thought that the older sister was more right than she knew.

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**A/N: **PeinKonan is my new favorite pairing. This is the first time I've attempted to write anything even remotely resembling a lemon, so I hope it turned out okay.

I don't know how one would cheat at rock-paper-scissors, but I'm sure Kakuzu could find a way—especially if the alternative is explaining "the birds and the bees" to Tobi.


	3. The Second Goal

_Chapter 3: The Second Goal_

Sakura paced back and forth, waiting for Sasuke to return from his latest mission. He had said that he would be back tonight, two days after she had returned from her own excursion to the Sand Village. But he was a few hours late, and it was natural for her to be nervous about this. He was the commander of Konoha's ANBU forces, after all, and as such, he often got sent on highly dangerous missions.

Tonight, though, she had an extra reason for being nervous. She had begun to suspect something, over the past week. She had tested her suspicions herself, and found them to be true. And being the Leaf's foremost medical ninja, she knew that her tests had been accurate and properly conducted. Still, she wanted to be absolutely sure before she brought it up with Sasuke, so she had both Ino and Shizune repeat the appropriate medical ninjutsu. Their results had agreed with hers.

"Sakura, I'm back." Sasuke stood in the doorway, looking tired but—thankfully—unharmed.

"Ah, hello, Sasuke. How did the mission go?"

"We got held up by an attack on the way back to Konoha, but the mission was completed successfully anyway."

"Was anyone hurt in the attack?"

"Kiba-san was injured, but the wounds were minor. And the enemy who hurt him was killed—Akamaru takes it rather poorly when someone attacks his master."

"Yes, I would imagine so…" Sakura took a deep breath, and then began. "Sasuke, do you remember when we had our first meeting as Team 7? Kakashi-sensei asked us what our goals were. You said you had two."

Sasuke nodded. "Of course I remember that. I said that I wanted to kill 'a certain person'—you didn't know who I meant at the time, but of course it was Itachi."

"And you eventually did that. But…there was another goal that you mentioned as well."

Sasuke had now started opening the cupboards, looking for something to cook for dinner. "Yes, I said that I wanted to restore my clan."

"You don't have to do that, I already cooked something a while ago, I just have to warm it up. Anyway, about your second goal…do you still hold that dream? In the three years we've been married, you've rarely mentioned it."

"Well…I do want to restore the Uchiha clan someday, but I know that you have duties as a shinobi. You can't necessarily take months or years off from your work to have a child right now."

Sakura blushed. "I'm…I'm glad that you're so understanding about that, but…well…" She trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

"What is it, Sakura? Is something wrong?" Sasuke's solicitous expression made Sakura smile. When she and Ino had been younger, they'd dreamed about having Sasuke look at them like that. They'd giggled over daydreams of Sasuke bringing them a dozen red roses, or proclaiming his love for them in front of the entire population of Konoha.

Of course, Sasuke wasn't the type of person to do things like that. He was reserved and rarely displayed his emotions to others. And knowing what he'd been through, Sakura could understand why. When the person whom you had loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world betrayed you, it became hard to open up to anyone ever again. Sasuke didn't express his love for Sakura through the kind of grandiose gestures that she had once fantasized about. He showed his love in a much simpler way—by opening up to her, by letting her know what he was thinking and feeling. Right now, for example, he was worried about her. Allowing that worry to show on his face and in his voice was, in its own way, as poignant a gesture of love as buying a dozen roses, because it meant that he was admitting to her that he _could_ feel emotions like worry and fear.

"No, nothing's wrong. But I do have something to tell you. It's…I'm…" Once again, Sakura was unsure of how to convey what she had to say. Almost unconsciously, her right hand drifted to her stomach and rested there, rubbing over her belly button in slow circles.

Sasuke's eyes widened as he looked from Sakura's hand to her face and back to her hand. "You…you mean…"

Sakura took a deep breath and nodded. Probably the best way to say it was to just _say_ it. "I'm going to have a baby, Sasuke."

Sasuke slowly blinked a few times, then the corners of his mouth started to twitch upwards, finally lifting into a grin. "That's…that's wonderful!"

Sasuke enfolded Sakura in his arms, and she was surprised to feel something wet trickling down his cheek, moistening her own where their faces were pressed together.

Prior to this, Sasuke had only cried three times in his life. When he had come home one evening to find that his beloved elder brother had murdered their entire clan, he had cried tears of sorrow and despair. When he had finally succeeded in killing Itachi, he had also cried—partly out of happiness, but also partly out of sadness that he couldn't explain. On his wedding day, watching Sakura standing before him in her white gown, he had tried—and failed—to hold back tears of pure joy.

Now, as he held Sakura close and felt the tiny pulse of a second chakra signature forming within her body, Sasuke felt tears leak from his eyes again. There was joy similar to what he'd felt when they got married, but something else as well.

There was hope.

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**A/N:** This chapter took me a bit longer to write than I expected, but I'm reasonably happy with it. Next up: JiraiyaTsunade! 


	4. The Road Not Taken

**Warning:** Major manga spoilers ahead.

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_Chapter 4: The Road Not Taken_

Jiraiya dodged a jet of searing flame, feeling a sharp twinge in his injured leg as he did so. _Dammit, that one nearly hit me. I'm slowing down._

Jiraiya had known that Pein had extraordinary talent with elemental ninjutsu, but in the years since Jiraiya had last seen him, he'd also achieved mastery of the legendary Summoning Technique. With the help of two ancient and wise toads, Jiraiya had fended off the first few animals Pein had summoned, but this most recent one was far more powerful than the others. It was the mythical creature known as the phoenix, an eagle-sized bird whose orange feathers gleamed with flame. Its powerful wings allowed it to evade all of Jiraiya's attacks, and its own fiery assaults had already killed both of his toad allies.

He had known that this mission would be dangerous. Infiltrating enemy territory always was, and he'd had no way of knowing how many members of Akatsuki would be lurking in the Rain Village when he arrived. When he left Konoha, he could see that Tsunade was worried. He'd laughed off her concern with one of his typical light-hearted quips. "Just bet every cent you have on me dying," he'd said. He always had made fun of her horribly bad luck at gambling.

_I shouldn't have just laughed it off. I should have tried to reassure her. Why didn't I do that_? _She's lost so many precious people already, the least I could have done was to promise that __I'd come back alive._

The phoenix came around for another pass, and Jiraiya gathered his chakra into the palm of his right hand. Slowly, he directed it to move around and around, gradually speeding up the spinning until a whirling, glowing ball of chakra filled his hand. As the phoenix bore down on him, he held his ground until the last second, barely sidestepping a vicious bite from its razor-sharp beak. As it passed, he slammed the Rasengan into its side, smiling grimly as it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

_But if I'd promised her that I'd make it back, I only would have been giving her false hope. Isn't it better to be honest with the person you love?_

_Wait._

_Did I just think of Tsunade as the person I love?_

Jiraiya waited tensely for the next summon, but no new animals appeared. _Maybe that was the limit to his summoning ability?_ Then there was a whoosh of displaced air, and Jiraiya was surrounded by a swirling vortex of paper. There was no need to ask where _that_ came from.

_Of course I love Tsunade. She's my comrade and friend. Since Orochimaru betrayed us, she's been the only person I've trusted completely. She's like a sister to me._

Some of the papers melded together, forming an arm that slashed at Jiraiya with a katana. He dodged and swiped at the arm with a kunai, only to have it fall apart into myriad sheets of parchment. This tactic was repeated over and over—Konan would emerge from the maelstrom and attack, dissolving back into the paper cyclone before Jiraiya could strike back at her. And he knew that each of his counterstrikes was a little bit slower, each movement leaving himself a little more open to attack.

_No, I've been lying to myself for years, and I don't have time to do that anymore. I love Tsunade, but it's not just the kind of love you feel for a sister or a friend. I __**love**__ her. If she asked me to, I'd give up my travels, stop doing "field research" for my books, and marry her. Hell, I should have asked her to marry me years ago. I was just…too afraid to do it. _

Now there were kunai and shuriken soaring through the storm of papers. They were coming from all directions, so Jiraiya didn't think that Pein was throwing them. Then a gap in the swirl of papers appeared, and Jiraiya saw shinobi gathering on the surrounding rooftops. Of course—they were in the middle of a village, it was only a matter of time before the fight attracted notice. And Pein was the leader of the Rain Village, so naturally all of its citizens would back him up in a fight. _Great. Just great._

Although it was vastly inappropriate to the situation, Jiraiya found himself laughing. _I have the courage to fight two S-ranked criminals, not to mention their entire village of minions, but I didn't have the courage to tell Tsunade how I feel about her. One woman can inspire more fear in me than a massive army. Why?_

And now, Jiraiya found his determination to live redoubled—not just for the sake of stopping the Akatsuki, or protecting Naruto, or defending Konoha. He wanted to live just so that he could make it back home and do what he should have done years ago.

"_Tsunade, I should have told you this long before now, but it's still not too late: I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."_

But there were more shuriken and kunai sailing through the air, Konan's attacks were fiercer than ever, and the phoenix was back. _Of course the damn thing's back. It's a phoenix—the whole _point _is that it reincarnates when it's killed._ Jiraiya extended his chakra throughout his mane of white hair, so that each individual hair stiffened. Then he shot them out in all directions like a swarm of senbon needles. All the kunai and shuriken were knocked off course, but both the deadly sheets of paper and the phoenix gracefully dodged.

And now another sword moved through the paper whirlwind, and it wasn't made of paper—it was a real, metal sword. Pein slashed and stabbed at Jiraiya, who was kept so busy dodging the katana that he could no longer block the paper and the flaming bird. (And only now did it occur to him that Konan's paper must be fireproof, because the phoenix was darting in and out among the papers without causing them any harm.)

Konan's papers opened up shallow cuts on Jiraiya's arms and legs. They weren't deep enough to cause severe damage, but they served to release more of his blood, weakening his already battle-weary body. The Legendary Sannin gritted his teeth. _I will not die here! I have to make it back…I have to make it back to Tsunade._ He swiped his hand across one of the wounds on his arm, smearing it with blood. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Suddenly, Jiraiya was rising high above Pein, high above the swirling papers, high above the persistent phoenix. "Hmm? What's going on?" Gamabunta rumbled. He looked up to see Jiraiya standing on his head. "Have you gotten yourself into trouble again, Jiraiya-kun?" Then the great frog's eyes widened as he recognized the man standing below them and the woman coalescing out of a multitude of papers. "Is that…Nagato-kun and Konan-kun?"

"Yes, although he's calling himself 'Pein' now."

For the next fifteen minutes, a furious battle raged between the shinobi and their respective summons. But Jiraiya was tiring: Pein and Konan were still in their prime, while Jiraiya was leaving his. When they joined him on Gamabunta's back, he found that he couldn't keep up with their movements anymore. Pein dealt terrifying blows with his sword, while Konan continued to give new meaning to the phrase "death by a thousand cuts."

Finally, Jiraiya found himself staggering. Blood poured from a dozen wounds, and his muscles trembled with exhaustion. Still, he refused to give up. He forced his hands to form seals, and made his body turn to parry his opponents' blows. Nothing but sheer willpower kept him from collapsing. One single thought pulsed over and over in his mind, keeping him on his feet: _Tsunade. I have to make it back to Tsunade._

He must have said that out loud at some point, because Pein was gazing at him with a curious expression on his face. "Tsunade? Wasn't she one of your teammates? She's Hokage now, or so I've heard."

"She is. And she's the reason I'm going to defeat you."

"Oh? I thought you wanted to beat me so you could protect that brat Naruto, or so that you could prevent me from bringing peace to the world."

"Those things are part of the reason, too, but…she's the most important reason. I have to beat you so I can make it back to her."

"You love her?"

"Yes."

"And does she know that?"

Jiraiya was silent.

"I didn't think so. You've never been able to truly get close to anyone. You left as soon as you were reasonably certain we wouldn't die the first time we got into a fight, and you haven't told Tsunade you love her even though you've known her for years."

Jiraiya felt something brush his wrists and tried to pull away, but Konan was too fast. His hands were wrenched behind him and wrapped in paper that was stronger than steel. Pein raised the katana above the Sannin's head.

"You should have told her when you had the chance."

The sword came down, and everything went black.

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**A/N:** Sorry this update took so long—this chapter was giving me a lot of trouble! I like Jiraiya and really don't want him to die (partly because I want to see him end up with Tsunade), but I have this horrible feeling that he's going to. (And yes, I know this will probably become AU as soon as this week's chapter is released.)

The next chapter will be the last, and will feature TemaShika.


End file.
